To Lose A Daughter
by Mary J. Watson
Summary: Potential one shot origin story for Mayday Parker, AKA Spider-Girl. Just a brainstorm to defeat writer's block... if you really enjoy this, let me know and maybe I'll expand into future chapters?
1. Chapter 1: To lose a daughter

**Chapter 1:**

To lose a daughter.

* * *

I rub my fingers through his silken hair. The movement causes the narrow causeway of air between my face and his hair to grow heavy with the heavenly scent of him. His scent is a perfume I've loved for the past twenty-five years. I breathe in deeply. It's comforting; sweet notes of safety and strength, love and loyalty that cause my eyelids to flutter shut as I remember all that has passed between us in these last twenty-five years.

I lean down and kiss his lips.

 _Ah, we have lost so much, my love._

"Gross. Can't you two get a room?"

 _Ah, but we have gained even more._

"Mayday Parker," My love chuckles as he reaches for the pillow in my lap, the one he had been resting his head upon, and with superhuman aim and speed, tossed it at our young daughter's head. She moves too fast for my eyes to register and all I see is a blur of movement. At a mere fourteen years old, she's faster than her father ever was.

"Too slow, ol' man." She picks the pillow up from the floor and chucks it back at him. It's a missile, slicing through the air with perfect aim and incredible speed. He catches it but it connects with his open palms with such intensity that I see him grimace. Because she's been different her entire life, her "different" seems normal to her. No, she doesn't realize yet that she's different... but we know it's only a matter of time. My love has been trying desperately to teach her to be "normal" but "normal" has never been a word in our spectacular Mayday's vocabulary.

"Alright, sport, what did I say about throwing so hard?" He sits up from my lap, his face solemn. "Just because you can, doesn't mean-"

"Doesn't mean you should." May rolls her beautiful cerulean eyes then smirks. "I heard you the first thousand times, Dad." She is a perfect combination of us both. His brains, my stubbornness; his dark chestnut hair, my sharp bone structure. When she stands beside me, everyone says she's my twin. When she opens her mouth, everyone says she's his spitting image. I've made many mistakes in my life but these two... these two perfect humans are the two things I have done undeniably right in this world.

They're play-fighting now. He has her in a bear hug and they're laughing like madmen as she struggles against him.

 _Thank you, God._ I'm smiling from my seat on the couch. _Thank you for this. For them. For everything._

I place my hand on my stomach and think of the little boy growing in there. Just four more months to go.

"Ma!" May is shrieking. She's escaped her father's grip and she's barreling towards me, her gangly arms waving wildly as she runs. She falls onto the couch and crawls into my lap. She is far too tall to fit into my lap and I laugh hard as she throws her arms around my neck and buries her face into my crimson hair. "Protect me!"

I wrap my arms around her then smile up into her father's face. He's breathless but wearing a large grin.

"I forfeit! I'm no match for Mary Jane Watson-Parker."

"That's right, Parker. And don't you ever forget it."

* * *

It's nighttime. I lay in bed reading the latest from John Grisham listening to the faint sound of my husband brushing his teeth in our adjoining bathroom. He spits into the sink and I hear the faucet turn on. The faucet turns off.

"She's getting stronger, MJ."

I knew this talk was coming – but I didn't realize it would be this soon. I set my book on the end table to my side.

"She's just a child, Peter."

He sighed heavily as he crossed the bedroom and got into bed beside me.

"I was sixteen when it happened to me. She's not too far off from that." He placed his hand on the comforter over my leg then squeezed gently. "We both knew this day would come. She needs to know that she's different and she needs to know how to handle that difference. If we keep pretending that she's "normal," others will begin to suspect and-"

I shudder at the thought of what would happen to her if anyone found out who she is.

And more importantly: _Who's daughter she is._

He continued to speak, "It has to happen before she goes back to school. She's been wanting to try out for the track team. I keep telling her to hold back but you know she won't hold back at the tryouts and when that happens, when they clock her going faster than what's humanly possible..." He let his words trail off. He didn't have to fill in the blanks.

School would be starting back up again in two weeks. I wanted to keep her superhero lineage a secret for as long as possible for noble and, ashamedly, selfish reasons. I wanted our daughter to experience a normal childhood for as long as she could but I also wanted to experience a normal family life for as long as I could. I loved being a mother and wife... yes – you read that right. I, Mary Jane Watson, heart-breaker and partier extraordinaire turned doting mother and devoted wife. As soon as Peter and I had found out that I was pregnant, he gave up his life as Spider-Man. When it was just he and I, it was different. He had a lot to lose when it was just he and I but he had far too much to lose when it became the three of us. As soon as May was born, we knew she had inherited his abilities... (Imagine my surprise when I found out our fifteen month old baby girl had bent the bars of her crib to escape naptime.) Every year, her abilities grew exponentially and we knew it was only a matter of time until her strength surpassed her father's.

"Look, MJ," I had been staring off into the distance, tears welling in my eyes. Peter's hand gently cupped my chin and forced me to turn my head to face him. I blinked and two massive tears fell down my cheeks. "This doesn't mean she starts fighting crime. _That_ will never be an option. But she needs to know who she is."

"She's May Parker. Our daughter." I snapped at him a little too viciously but he did not flinch. Oh, my steadfast and always rational husband. He was the ice to my fire and I still, to this day, don't know what I would've done without him to keep me steady.

"Yes, and nothing will ever change that."

"Tomorrow then?" I bit down on my bottom lip to quell the sob I felt bubbling at the back of my throat.

He nodded then tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. "Tomorrow."

Tomorrow, I would be losing my daughter.

Tomorrow, the world would be gaining another superhero.

* * *

 _Writer's Note: This is just a one shot to defeat writer's block. If you truly enjoyed this and would like to see more, let me know and maybe I'll add a couple more chapters. Otherwise, I'm just going to use this to defeat writer's block whenever it hits :)_


	2. Chapter 2: Who are you really?

**Chapter 2:**

Who are you really?

* * *

All of my life, I've wanted to fit in. But I've always been an outsider.

I have good days and bad days. On my good days, I'm an outsider who convinces everyone around them that she belongs. On my bad days, I'm just an outsider.

Today, I became even more of an outsider and my dream of fitting in slipped even further from my grasp.

Let's start at the beginning...

9am. It's a Saturday. I can hear my mother rummaging in the kitchen directly below my bedroom. I smell bacon. I'm suddenly alarmed. Mom doesn't cook... Mom burns things (and herself) when she cooks. Mom only cooks when someone has died. Exhibit A: When I left for summer camp and she forgot to feed my pet goldfish for an entire week. When I got back, she ended up cooking an extravagant guilt-fueled dinner and nearly burnt her eyebrows off when the cooking wine caught fire. And yet, somehow, she still looked beautiful with singed eyebrows. *Sigh* I, on the other hand, would have ended up looking like a deranged science experiment without eyebrows. But alas! I digress.

So, Mom is cooking breakfast and the whole house smells of bacon. I'm relieved because I don't smell anything burning but I'm also concerned because this likely means someone or something has died. I round the corner into the kitchen slowly, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"There's our Sleeping Beauty!" Mom is too chipper for this early in the morning. She's standing at the stove and looking at me from over her shoulder, beaming.

Dad is sitting at the little round kitchen table in the center of the room, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. He doesn't even look up when I walk in, which is usual. He's always so easily lost in his reading. I casually notice that he's wearing gym clothes but I figure it's because Mom has him doing some sort of handiwork around the house.

"Ah, good, I'm glad you're here." I mumble to him as I slide into the chair across from him.

"Someone has to supervise." He still doesn't look up from the paper but a wicked smirk curls his lips as he reaches for his coffee and takes a sip.

"Hey!" Mom chides from the stove, "I can hear you two."

"So... who's going to break the news to me? Mom?" I look at her back. She's frozen in place. I glance over at Dad. "...Dad?" He's so still his chest hardly rises with his breath.

They're all silent. _Dang, this must be bad._

Mom breaks the silence. "What do you mean?"

"Well," I'm hesitant. Their odd behavior is making me incredibly nervous now. "You only cook when something bad has happened."

She laughed. Mom is an actress – a _really_ good actress – but she can't fool me. "Don't be silly, May. Can't a mother cook for her daughter without being accused of having some kind of ulterior motive?"

Dad stays quiet. I eye him from across the table. He can feel me staring at him but he refuses to look up from his newspaper. Instead, he shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

I relent. "Yeah, okay."

Mom begins setting out the plates.

"I was thinking we could go for a run in Central Park." Dad folds his newspaper then puts it down onto the table. He's smiling. "We have to make sure you're ready for tryouts."

My eyebrows fly up to my hairline and my jaw drops to the floor. "WHAT! You guys are going to let me try out for track?!"

My parents have always had a weird rule about me doing any kind of sport (afraid that I'm going to get hurt or something – I don't know) so this was huge news. I would be starting high school in two weeks and I desperately wanted to be on a sports team of any kind. Academically, I excelled but academics don't make you friends. Academics don't help you fit in. Academics paint a red bulls-eye on your back for other kids to throw darts at.

However, sports make you instantly "cool" and that's what I desperately wanted to be.

"Dad! Mom!" Frantically, I search their faces for any sign that they're kidding. "Tell me you guys are being serious!"

Mom wore a placid smile as she piled food onto our plates. Dad chuckled as he picked up his fork. "You're going to be the fastest one on the team, Mayday."

I shoveled my breakfast down my throat so quickly I nearly made myself sick. Mom continuously asked me to slow down but I couldn't wait to finish and get to Central Park to start training. As soon as I had scarfed down my breakfast, I asked to be excused to change. Dad looked to Mom who hesitated then finally nodded her head sadly.

"Go ahead."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I jumped from the table, kissed her on the cheek, then bolted upstairs. Within minutes, I had changed into my running pants and an old chess club t-shirt from two years ago. I laced up my sneakers then ran out of my bedroom.

"Alright!" I was running down the stairs, taking two steps at a time when I caught sight of Mom's tear-stained face. As soon as she saw me, she turned her face and walked back into the kitchen, leaving Dad to stand by himself at the foot of the stairs. "I'm... ready..." I came to a stop beside Dad. We both looked at Mom's back as she busied herself with cleaning off the kitchen table.

"Mom," I took a step towards her but Dad's hand on my shoulder stopped me, mid-step.

"It's okay, Mayday." His voice was low but I could hear the pain in it. "Lets go."

"But..." It broke my heart to see her cry. I couldn't recall a time I had ever seen her cry and to see it now shook me to my core. I didn't want to leave her. Dad took me by both shoulders and gently guided me out of the house. Silently, we got into the car and neither of us said a word until we were nearly to Central Park.

"She's having a hard time acknowledging the fact that you're growing up." Dad smiled softly as he pulled into the parking lot. "We both are, but it's a little harder for her. She'll be okay though. With time."

"...But it's just the track team."

He chuckled as he parked the car. "It's more than that but I don't expect you to understand. Not yet at least."

We both got out of the car and I stayed quiet, expecting him to explain further, but the explanation never came. We paused at the entrance of the park to stretch. The remnants of summer had colored Central Park a magnificent emerald with little bronze specks of the looming autumn. The day was cold but sunny and I remember basking in the warmth of the sun as Dad and I stood side by side, stretching our legs before the run.

Dad is fast - Don't let the sprinkle of gray in his hair fool you. He can run further and faster than anyone I know... except for me. My long, lanky legs pumped hard beside him and I was able to keep up without even breaking a sweat. We ran through the heavily wooded park, twists and turns taking us deeper into the park. In the past, we had often run through the park but he would intermittently pause to remind me, "Not so fast, Mayday. Just because you can doesn't mean you should." But not this time. After a while, when we hadn't passed a single person for quite some time, he began to run faster. I matched his pace until we were sprinting faster than we had ever before.

"Faster!" He laughed in between ragged breaths as we turned down a path we had never taken before. This was the first time he had encouraged me to push my limits with running and I intended to take full advantage of the opportunity.

I took a deep breath and pushed harder. Up, down, up, down; My knees lifted faster, my sneakers pounded the concrete path at a rapid pace. I started pulling away from him. I could see in the corner of my eye that he was speeding up but he wasn't fast enough to keep pace. The distance between us began to span further. He was laughing and from behind me I could hear him cheering me on, "Yes, May! Faster!"

I swear I thought my heart was going to burst but I kept going. I felt free – what an amazing feeling! I took a deep breath and an incredible strength filled me. I was moving faster now. The world around me was a blur of green.

Then suddenly, a man in a hoodie stepped from the trees and into my path. I stopped so fast that my feet tangled beneath me. I tumbled onto the pavement just inches in front of him. My whole body hurt. I groaned in pain as I rolled over onto my back to stare up at his shadowy face as he stood over me. Before I knew it, Dad was kneeling beside me and the man recoiled a half-foot.

"Are you okay?" Dad was nearly frantic. "What hurts?"

"I'm fine, Dad." I was embarrassed but more than that, I was worried he was going to take back his decision to let me try out for the track team. I let him pull me to my feet then took a step back from him. "I wouldn't have even fallen if it hadn't been for this guy-" I gestured to the hooded man and just as I did, he lunged forward and grabbed Dad from behind, arm hooked around his throat in a firm chokehold, barrel of a small pistol pressed into the temple of his forehead.

I screamed and my shrill scream echoed through the park.

"Give me your wallet!" The hooded man screamed into Dad's ear but Dad didn't flinch. He remained cool and calm as though this were a completely normal occurrence. I, however, began to sob uncontrollably.

"Mayday," My father spoke soothingly, "Calm down. We're just going to give him what he wants and-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP," The man reached back with his pistol then slammed it into the side of my father's head.

Something in me snapped.

A monster was unleashed.

The same power I felt when I was sprinting filled me to the brim and suddenly I was moving faster than I had ever moved before.

I see my father beginning to recoil from the strike but I'm faster than him. I lunge forward and the man's arm, the one wielding the pistol, is within my grasp. I feel the slightest tug from him as he tries to break free from my grip but I'm much stronger than him. He is an infant compared to me. I clench down and like an eggshell, his ulna and radius bone break in my hands. Immediately, his arm droops in a sickening angle. His arm looks like rubber now. It's a clean break.

The man drops to his knees and the pistol falls from his hand. Dad grabs the pistol and crumples it like paper in his hands. He tosses it into the thick foliage beside the path.

"May," He speaks softly, reaching a single hand towards me. I'm like a seething madwoman, gripping the hooded man's broken arm in my vice grip as he kneels before me, screeching in agony. "Let him go, sweetheart. It's over. You can let him go." I don't move. I look down at the man's broken arm then back up. I'm looking at Dad but seeing through him, my breath drawing raggedly through my clenched teeth.

Dad speaks again, "Mayday."

It's that nickname that brings my senses rushing back to me. I feel my strength flow out of me like water down a drain. I released the man then stumbled back, tears bloating my eyes. The man scurried to his feet and within moments was gone, having run down the path away from us.

"What -" I managed a single word between the sobs that ripped through me. Dad took two steps forward then dropped to his knees beside me, engulfing me within his arms. Sobs racked through me. Fear, confusion, adrenaline. What had just happened?

"You aren't like everyone else, Mayday. It's time you learn who you really are."


	3. Chapter 3: This End's Beginning

**Chapter 3: This End's Beginning**

To make an end is to make a beginning.

* * *

Life is funny sometimes. Just when you think things are finally going your way, life kicks your knees out from under you and stands there like that kid from the fifth grade who always stole your lunch money, pointing its finger and laughing.

I had just snapped some would-be robber's forearm like it was a carrot stick. I was sobbing. I knew that my sobs were irrational; after all, it wasn't like _my_ forearm had just been broken in two pieces, but my confusion over what had just transpired was so great that it overwhelmed me and caused my emotions to malfunction. Dad held me to his chest, the two of us facing each other upon our knees, my face buried in his chest as I thoroughly soaked his t-shirt.

"You aren't like everyone else, Mayday." His voice was soft and calm, just as it always was – even in the face of danger. "It's time you learn who you really are."

"I want to go home, Dad." My sobs had subsided but my limbs still trembled from the adrenaline. "Please."

Without another word, he stood and helped me to my feet. We walked the path back to the parking lot in silence. I walked quickly in order to keep a short clip of distance between us. I was embarrassed. I felt like the girl who'd just realized she had been walking around school with the hem of her dress tucked into her underwear all day. I've been that girl – twice! - and let me tell you: it's a sucky feeling. How had I broken that guy's arm so easily? Were bones really that easy to break? And how had I moved so quickly...? None of this made sense.

When I neared the car, Dad unlocked it with his key fob and I slid into the passenger side, buckled my seatbelt, crossed my arms over my stomach, and stared out the windshield. This was my "do not speak" stance and while it never worked with Mom, it _always_ worked with Dad. After twenty-five years of knowing Mom and fourteen years of raising me, he was fluent in this stance and knew when to steer clear of us.

He opened the car door, slid into his seat then started the car. He glanced at me as I sat in my "do not speak" stance then proceeded to ignore all the warning signs. As we pulled out of the parking lot, he spoke hesitantly, "Your body is going through... _changes_. Big changes. And I know it's probably really strange and scary -"

I inhaled sharply with pure mortification. Was he actually trying to have "the talk" with me?

"Dad!" I whirled around in my seat to stare at him from the passenger seat. My jaw dropped and my eyebrows flew. He stared back at me, wide-eyed innocence. He opened his mouth to say something then thought better of it and closed his mouth again. He glanced at me then the road, then me and the road again.

Finally, he spoke. "May, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Dad, stop. Please. Mom already had 'the talk' with me, okay?" I sighed heavily, a mixture of hot frustration and supreme embarrassment coloring my cheeks scarlet. We nearly get mugged and possibly shot and/or killed, I maim a guy, and now my Dad wants to discuss the birds and the bees? Talk about horrible timing.

From the corner of my eye, I saw his eyebrows raise. He let out a sigh of relief then noticeably relaxed in his seat.

"Did she really? Wow. She was so hesitant about me having the talk with you that I never would have thought she'd take the initiative to do it herself." He stared at the road and smiled. "Well, that makes this a whole lot easier. Do you have any questions for me?"

I groaned, "No, Dad."

"Not even one? Aren't you curious about how it all started? The radioactive spider?"

"...Huh?" I speak too softly and he doesn't hear my question. Or, perhaps he had but he was so caught up in his own excitement that he couldn't stop himself.

"Or any of the battles? Surely your mom mentioned them. Doc Ock, Vulture, Shriek, Jackal," His face lights up. "Venom! Venom, sheesh. Now, that was a tough one. Those were some pretty intense fights! The city buzzed about those fights for weeks after. Every newspaper wrote about it, every TV station reported on it. It took months for the city to repair all the damage those suckers created! Man. Those were the days, Mayday."

The color drained from my face. I felt cold sweat dripping down my temples. What was he talking about? I stared at him, unable to move or utter a sound.

"W-what are you talking about, Dad?"

He finally looked over at me and when he did, his eyes grew wide. "Oh. God. You don't know what I'm talking about..."

"No, why should I?!" Panic set in. I was screaming, my hands emphatically slicing the air as I spoke. "What _**are**_ you talking about! What spider! Who is Doc Ock and Venom, and all of these other weird names!"

He turned the steering wheel hard right, so hard that the tires screeched angrily and our bodies tilted haphazardly out of our seats. We pulled into a gas station parking lot and when he turned off the car, he took a deep breath then turned to face me.

"Mayday," He reached forward and placed his hand gently on my arm. "This is going to come as a huge shock and... I don't know how to else to say this, but... I'm Spider-Man."

I stare into my father's face, waiting for the corners of his mouth to curl up into a smile, waiting for his deep chuckle, waiting for him to say "Just kidding. You shoulda seen the look on your face!" But he didn't smile, and he didn't laugh or tell me it was all a joke. My father, the man who never lied, stared me in the face and repeated himself. "I'm Spider-Man. Or, I was before mutants were outlawed. Before you came into the world."

This moment was meant to be tender; the passing of a family heirloom of sorts, from one generation to the next, but the tenderness of the moment was completely lost on me. I felt the words forming in my gut, bubbling forth like a frothy, angry wave. Up through my esophagus, past my tonsils, filling my mouth and choking me until I was forced to spit them out.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" The words escaped me before I could temper them.

"May Parker!" He recoiled from me as though my inflammatory words had physically burned his flesh. "Language!"

"So, what? I'm like Spider-Woman or something?" I was angry. Either he was playing a weird and far too drawn out joke on me, or he had just dropped the biggest truth bomb of my life upon my head in the parking lot of a Seven-Eleven.

"Spider-Girl." His brows knitted together. "You're fourteen, young lady." Quickly he shook his head as though to dispel the words he had just spoken. "But you're not even that! You will never fight crime like I did, do you understand me? The world is a very dangerous place and there are people out there who seek out people like us just to mount our heads on a wall like a trophy. The world has never been a warm, fuzzy place for mutants but it's worse now than it's ever been. Mutants are outlawed, May, don't forget that."

"So what's the point in even telling me?" My words were heated and dipped in venom. "If what you're saying is true then I really am a freak, just like they all said!"

His hardened facade crumbled as soon as I spoke the word "freak." My yells had left the air between us charged and eerily quiet. Slowly, he reached out then gently grasped my arm. "Who said you were a freak?"

"The kids at school." I jutted my chin out, trying to put on a brave face despite the pain that suddenly gripped my throat and caused me to gulp down hard. "Can we just go home? This whole day is ruined and I really want nothing more than to go back to bed and pretend like none of this even happened."

Doc Ock, Vulture, Shriek, Jackal, Venom... none of them put up a fight like an angry fourteen year old girl. Not even Spider-Man could win this fight. My poor father recognized defeat when he saw it and with one last look at my passive face, he started the car back up and began the drive home.

* * *

I remember this day like yesterday. It's one of those days that are forever burned into the corneas of your mind for instant replay at any given moment. I remember feeling like my life was over. For a girl who wanted nothing more than to fit in, finding out she was a genetic mutant was like receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis. Oh, but if only I had known then what I know now...

Sometimes when your life feels like it's ending, it's really just beginning.


End file.
